


The Odds of Falling

by orphan_account



Series: The Odds of Falling [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, John has a knife, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Misunderstandings, Reincarnation fic, Vampire Sherlock, established relationship (give or take a few hundred years), magical john, retold ep. 1, sorcerer John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:35:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Sherlock's mind, two important things happened two hundred years ago:</p><p>John Watson died. </p><p>He himself was turned in a war.</p><p>In John Watson's mind, the events are vaguely similar:</p><p>Sherlock Holmes died.</p><p>He himself was reborn for the first time.</p><p>What will happen, two hundred years later, when their lives cross once more, in twenty first century London?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Odds of Falling

**Author's Note:**

> This was to satisfy my dying need to write a reincarnation fic. Hope you like it. (sequel has been posted)

Sherlock hadn't been afraid when he was turned.

He hadn't been like all the other poor, keening souls in the camp, screaming long after their guns had emptied and their humanity had drained away into the red snow.

When the coven had descended on them that cold, winter night he had watched from one of the farthest tents as his comrades shot uselessly at the vampires, eyes calculating his chances, mind realizing that defeat was inevitable, that their weapons were useless. When the female one had bit him; a brown haired, feral thing with a devilish smile and intelligent eyes he had let himself be consumed, because giving in was the most logical decision.

Honor was useless.

Humanity was weakness.

War was mankind's doorway to the savagery they hunted, an outlet to the same kind of terror the demons they hunted possessed.

He had not been afraid. He had not felt much of anything in a very long time, turning from a warm monster to a cold one just as the seasons shifted every year.

The centuries had passed; blurring together into wars and blood and a loneliness he hadn't felt. Didn't feel, until precisely twelve minutes and thirty five seconds ago, in a Tesco's, in the fruits and vegetables isle. The year was sometime in the two thousands, and Sherlock Holmes was around two hundred years old.

 

*****  
 _  
1812, the British Empire._

_Wind whipped curls across his face, eyes squinting and searching, legs burning underneath him, running on the pounding of his heart. His face was split in an impossible grin._

_Strong. Fierce. Alive. Human._

_Something flickered in the corners of his vision, a blonde and red flash between the endless expanse of trees, leaving a trail of laughter behind that Sherlock followed like a scent._

_"Sherlock, come and catch me!"_

_The words floated back towards him on the breeze, a small stream in the continuous current of information, data, filing into Sherlock's mind, calculating and deducing. It had taken him five years on the earth to realize he was different from the others._

_It had taken him twenty years and a John to make him realize he was special._

_John had been the town physicians son; an apprentice in the art of healing, short and elf like. The small being that became Sherlock's entire brilliant world in the span of a month._

_He was a puzzle, a fairly simple one that once solved painted such a picture that Sherlock had decided he wanted it for the rest of time._

_John had been his. He had been John's._

_And John had been fast._

_Like a little blonde fox he had darted away, and Sherlock would always follow, tall and lanky and never as fast. The war had started and like most boys did they were running from the troubles of life._

_Into death's waiting arms._

_It had happened too suddenly for even his senses, a call, maybe a scream, perhaps his name just making it past his lips or simply a strangled panicked cry and then nothing; just empty air as the apprentice tumbled off the cliff and into sea._

_The wind was strong and the storm was near and the sea was dark, icy monster that swallowed men and never allowed them to wash ashore._

_He hadn't even seen him hit the water, a second too late, always._

_Sherlock lay there, collapsed at the cliff's edge, arms dangling. He was still there, reaching for John for hours, as night fell and morning rose, contemplating whether the sea was hungry for yet another man, as his vision contorted with icy tears._

_Some delve into passion when faced with loss. Some scream, they cry, swear revenge upon everything and nothing at all._

_Sherlock's heart turned the fire in on itself and burned._

_It promised to never feel again._

__

 

Noises and smells. They permeated the air, an endless mass of humanity, invading his senses until he had to focus on only specific sounds so all the data didn't drive him mad. It was a good thing his brain was more than capable of doing such things. 

Only snippets of conversations slipped passed the mental barriers, although nothing could curb his hound like sense of smell. It was all just vaguely uncomfortable; a reason why he never frequented dense human areas (although he was partial to London enough to suffer through he city throngs). It had been over a hundred or so years since he'd perfected control, so that when around humans the urge to have his fangs slip out was almost unnoticeable. Fresh spilled blood was only a nuisance. Almost nothing could surprise him. 

Almost nothing, although the simple sentence of, "Where's the jam?" seemed to fall in the minority percentage.

It floated toward him passed the filtering mental barriers, from the other side of the store where a confused man was trying to get around store's new renovations. 

Sherlock dropped his basket and the bottle of vinegar he had been inspecting, the acidic contents shattering on the ground, and yet by the time it had hit the ground Sherlock's leather shoes weren't there to stain. 

Without thought, his mind impossibly frozen, his body went into overdrive, limbs shifting at superhuman speed to the new dairy section of Tesco's, the only evidence of his movements in the unnatural breeze that blew by a few random customers. 

One moment he was inspecting vinegar for an expirement and the next he was standing a couple meters away from a boy, a _man_ , war worn and short and blonde; an impossible mirror image of John; John who had been ripped from him quite literally so long ago, John who now lived in the center of his heart, in the heart of the castle his mind built in years of pain and solitude. Even his voice sounded the same, calm and brisk and ironic.

He drank in the sight with wide, sharp eyes; the dark blue pupils, the short cropped, fine hair, his posture, jacket sleeves, mahogany shoes. It was like a painful sort of dejá vu, the boy he'd loved so long ago slipped into the costume of an army man—grim, world weary and lost.

 _Lost._ He could feel it rolling off him, a subtle sadness, the waywardness of loss and the residual horror of war. The faux-John thanked the clerk in front of him and walked a few paces towards another aisle, never noticing the tall man in the shadows. The tall creature.

 _Injured._ Sherlock realized with a jolt, mind facing to piece together the evidence. His limped, with a cane he absolutely despised, but... It wasn't real. The limp. It felt real but the leg, the leg was completely fine. _Psychosomatic._

The man disappeared in between aisles and Sherlock followed. He briefly considered heading back to St. Bart's for that meeting Stamford wanted but his mind (and still heart) rejected the idea so thoroughly that he didn't pay it a second thought. Like the creature out of storybooks he stalked the other man out of the store and on to the crowded London streets, observing him, his gait, his pace, his distinctive limp matched with an army bred stride.

 

*****

He unabashedly stalked what appeared to be the reincarnation of his John from so long ago, following his from the jam isle to the cash register to his small, one room flat in central London. 

Faux-John was broke, he deduced, or close to that. He loved London: it was the only reason he continued to live in the expensive center of the city. His clothes were a few years old and not in good shape for it; out of his entire ensemble the white wool sweater seemed to be in the best condition. His shoes, while old and mud splattered, had been an expensive gift from family, most likely a sibling. He wore them put of practicality rather than sentiment, as he was not willing to go to them for help.

His limp, while psychosomatic, must have been instigated by an unrelated, but serious injury. Most likely a bullet wound, seeing as he had been in the army recently, most likely back in London after being invalided. 

He would have been fighting in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Obviously knew how to handle a weapon, though he didn't fall into the usual category of privates.

Standing outside John's flat Sherlock could hear as deduce almost everything that went on inside the small room. He had gone back to simply change, Sherlock surmised as he heard the sliding of wooden drawers and the soft rustle of fabric. A quick glance at his phone confirmed what Sherlock had guessed; he had officially missed Stamford's meeting. 

Well, it wasn't as if Mike would be surprised.

John emerged from his flat not ten minutes later, donning a new red shirt, leather jacket, and brushed hair. 

_Meeting someone. Not a date, too casual. An old friend._

John set off towards the square, his pace slightly quicker, limp even more apparent. 

_Late._

Sherlock followed ten meters behind, weaving between people, walking casually in his long stride, coat loose in the fall weather. It was a nice day by London standards. 

He stopped walking when he reached the edge of the terrace, in the center of which was a fountain were John was meeting his friend. Mike Stamford. 

Sherlock was close to stunned. His colleague knew John's reincarnation? 

"Mike," Faux-John said by way of greeting. "Been a while." His voice made Sherlock breathe in sharply, the familiar tone haunting. 

"Bit more than a while, mate." Stamford replied, already sitting on the stone bench rimming the fountain. "My god, John Watson. What've you been up to?" 

Sherlock froze, head cocked in their direction. _John. His name is still John._

"I've been getting shot at. You?" 

"Been teaching up at Bart's still. Bright young things like we use to be," Stamford smiled. "God, I hate them."

John had trained at Bart's then, with Stamford. He had become a doctor, but not only that, an army doctor. Out in the field, no hospitals. Close enough to still get shot.

"What happened to you then?" Stamford continued, and Sherlock rolled his eyes violently. How was it possible to be this unobservant? 

"I got shot," John replied. "Probably going to have to move out of the city soon." he admitted, sitting down on the bench. "Can't afford central London on army compensation." 

"Why don't you get a flat-mate?" Stamford suggested, and Sherlock blinked, remembering himself complaining just that morning about how he needed a flat-mate if he were to move into 221B. This was perfect.

John laughed derisively. "Who would want me as a flat-mate?"

 _I would._ Sherlock thought, almost breathing the words into the cool air. _God, I would._

 

*****

It was easy enough to deduce Stamford's plan; he had assumed that Sherlock was still in the lab as he had been in the morning. To his credit, it was a good guess; not even Sherlock had foreseen the sudden lack of vinegar that would instigate his trip to Tesco. Thank god for it.

Upon hearing Stamford stand and say, "Let's head back to Bart's. I can introduce you to a colleague of mine." Sherlock twirled around, feeling his coat tails whip against passerby's legs as he accelerated into his vampiric, superhuman speed, arriving at Bart's in less than a minute. 

By the time the pair of friends arrived in the building   
he was dripping samples of his own blood onto glass slides, playing human.

The door swung open. 

"This is the lab, and my colleague." Stamford motioned John inside.

"Bit different from my day," John said, roaming the room. Sherlock waited with bated breath for his eyes to fall on him, scanned John's eyes. He knew that the chances of John recognizing him were less than slim, but even all these years the human he had once been was still buried deep; hoping, dreaming.

After a few seconds, though to Sherlock it felt like an eternity, John's eyes fell on him, dark blue irises piercing. There was a flash of something, something like fear but Sherlock couldn't quite catch it before it was gone, and John was smiling; introducing himself.

"Hello, I'm John Watson." he said, leaning on his cane. 

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sherlock asked outright, unable to deduce the answer even from such close quarters. 

"Afghanistan, but how did you—" 

"I was just asking for familiarity. Flat mates should know the worst about each other."

John was now completely confused, turning to Stamford in realization. "You told him about me?"

"Not a word." Stamford was smiling.

John turned back to Sherlock. "Then how—"

"I _saw_..." he reeled off his deductions as fast as he could without blurring the words into a frequency John couldn't understand. 

When he finished he almost regretted it. He could just hear what John would say afterwards, that he was crazy, or that he should just toss off. 

"That was brilliant." 

Sherlock blinked and cocked his head sideways, something he had come to understand was not a customary human action. "It was?"

"Well of course, you must be some sort of genius."

He only just refrained from saying _I am._

Breaking up the silence that had fallen he stood briskly from his microscope and wrapped his scarf around his head, coat by the door. 

"There's a lovely set of flat's in central London at the address of 221B Baker Street. I'll meet you there tomorrow at nine in the morning." he said as he walked towards the door, implementing extraordinary self restraint as he stopped himself from reaching out to touch John. If he did that, he'd probably fling the rest of himself at the other man within a second. 

"Wait a minute." John called just as he reached for the door. "Can you stay for a minute? I want to talk to you about this flat we're apparently moving into."

"Of course," Sherlock smiled, turning with his hands clasped behind him. He walked forward until he was almost a few feet from John, reveling in the height difference that had apparently traveled through the ages. The two men stared at each other, blue eyes on unnaturally iridescent ones.

An awkward cough broke the contact. "Well, I've got a meeting to get to." Stamford said, a blatant lie, making his way to the door. "Nice seeing you John. Don't break the new equipment, Sherlock."

 

Sherlock turned away from John, feeling the other man's discomfort, and returned to his microscope, placing the slides back into their respective containers as he spoke. 

"What is it you wanted to talk about? If its percentages, I— _ah_." Sherlock gasped, sinking down onto the counter. Pain blossomed in his abdomen, spread across his chest like ice, colder than he was already. _"John?"_ he breathed.

His fumbling hands found a small metal handle protruding from his lower back, but it was too painful to pull out at such a contorted position. He was no stranger to pain, but this was different. It was otherworldly. Witchcraft.

Before he could even begin to try and stand two rough hands grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall, his legs bent forward so he was almost sitting, face to face with John's angry reincarnation.

"What are you?" he hissed, pressing Sherlock harder against the wall. Frankly, Sherlock's mind had decided to shut down, his eyes wide and disbelieving. It didn't comprehend the terms stab and John in the same sentence, couldn't imagine...

"John... Why...?" 

"Where did you get this body? What do you want with me?" John demanded, and his eyes glowed an electric blue.

In response, Sherlock could feel his eyes changing into their vampiric form, silvery and glowing. 

"W-what?" he stammered, and his voice didn't sound like his own. "This body is mine, this mind is mine, what are you—"

"That isn't _possible._ The person, the man—" John's voice cracked for a moment and Sherlock could feel hope creeping up in his chest, his traitorous humanity. "The man you are impersonating has been dead a good two hundred years. Now what are you? A ghoul? A sorcerer? What do you want with me?"

"I am Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock answered honestly, and the theories he was so good at spinning started coming together. "I was turned into a blood incubus two hundred years ago. You are some incarnation of my... Of John Hamish Watson.

John's face softened imperceptibly, his grip loosening, though distrust was all Sherlock could see. 

"You are not Sherlock Holmes. You— _he_ died in war centuries ago." his voice was starting to sound unsure.

Sherlock's wits were starting to gather through the shock of the attack, the pain of whatever John had stabbed with. "You cannot be John Watson by that logic then." he replied with more confidence. "John Watson fell to his death... Off a cliff into the sea two hundred years ago."

The realization dawned on John's face in the form of devastation. His entire body seemed to sag, hands falling off of Sherlock's shoulders altogether. Sherlock slid silently to the floor, all too aware of the blood pooling beneath him. His normally keen eyes were dimming around the edges, darkness moving in. He wasn't healing. 

John had magic.

"No..." John muttered, eyes wide and glowing. "I can't believe... But here you are." his gaze found Sherlock and there were tears in his eyes. "God, is it really you?" 

"I would ask you the same." Sherlock murmured, blinking hard. His body was experiencing too many unfamiliar things at once, the pain, the sadness, the hope. All so very human things, something he hadn't been in such a long time.

"God," John repeated again. He seemed to be in a daze. "All this time, what—" his eyes got wide again. "Oh god, you're bleeding."

"You're the one that stabbed me." Sherlock reminded him. It was less of an accusation than a fact.

"Right," John mumbled, his face crumbling into a grief like guilt. "I'm so sorry. Let's get you to the table... well, okay then." 

Sherlock had summoned his remaining strength into one last superhumanly fast move to the table, where he lay on his stomach in the blink of an eye. He could feel himself fading, feel a darkness much more pressing than sleep coming to claim him. 

The moment John pulled the blade from his back Sherlock began to heal, gritting his teeth to prevent a scream. John muttered small nonsense as he worked, spouting an apology every other word, kneeling next to the table so he was eye level with Sherlock's head. He ran his finger's through Sherlock's curls and the familiarity made his eyes close.

"A vampire, huh?" John said after a while. Sherlock opened his eyes, noticing that John's had resumed their normal dark blue. 

"Don't worry, I don't kill the humans." Sherlock murmured absentmindedly. "But then you're not human. You have magic." 

"I'm a sorcerer." John said quietly, and Sherlock's eyes snapped open. 

"A born sorcerer?"

"Yes."

"Of course," Sherlock breathed. It explained all the odd things the Watsons had kept in their house, thought of as witch doctor relics. It explained why the elder Watsons sometimes disappeared for months at a time. "How long was your regrowth time?" 

"Almost a year. You should have seen me climb out of the bay. My parents had made up some tail about a girl over in America and we had to make like she died." he smiled sadly. "They told me you had been enlisted, and that your entire encampment had been slaughtered in an ambush." his face grew dark. "I went to war then. Killed so many people on the other side, like I was avenging you. Saved people that should have died with my powers. When I came back to the village my family was gone... I've been meddling in warfare ever since."

"So you are an army doctor." Sherlock said, pulling himself into a sitting position with a groan. 

"More or less," John answered fondly. "Vampirism looks good on you." He grew serious again. "But then how did you get turned?"

"Oh the story the villagers knew wasn't so different from the truth." Sherlock smiled grimly. "But our camp was massacred by vampires rather than humans I'm afraid. They turned me when I didn't fight. I've been skipping around the world for the past hundred years... Though it seems I always return to London after a while."

John nodded, the dazed expression returning. "I just, I mean _Jesus_..."

"Agreed." Sherlock said, standing carefully. 

John shuffled on his feet, eyes never meeting Sherlock's. 

"What are we going to do now, then?" he asked quietly, as if afraid of the answer. His tone was dry. "Get a flat in central London, share the rent like humans do?"

"Why not?" Sherlock mused, and his hand reached up to John's face without thought, another shadow of his human self. "Mrs. Hudson's got lovely flats. And we've got all the time on this earth."

He watched the emotion flicker over John's all too open face, watched it debate and decided and knew the exact moment when he gave in. It was all so familiar, and yet so strangely unreal.

"We do, don't we?" John murmured, leaning into his touch almost thoughtlessly. He smiled, and Sherlock could see the boy he had known so long ago, the one he had loved. "All the time in the world."

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe I'll expand on this. Magical John appeals to me. 
> 
> Feedback? *moriarty voice* plllleeeEEEEAAASSEE?
> 
> Update: Sequel is up and running.


End file.
